


he’s a fun guy, and he’ll grow on you

by anthropologicalhands



Category: Crazy Ex-Girlfriend (TV)
Genre: (well more like a redwood), Bad Puns, Crack Treated Seriously, F/M, Gen, Humor, Nymphs & Dryads, Post-Canon, Sequoia, Transformation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-30
Updated: 2020-08-30
Packaged: 2021-03-07 01:48:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,857
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26188999
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/anthropologicalhands/pseuds/anthropologicalhands
Summary: Nathaniel offends a wood nymph and faces the consequences, while Heather seeks a solution.
Relationships: Heather Davis & Nathaniel Plimpton, Rebecca Bunch/Nathaniel Plimpton
Comments: 4
Kudos: 19





	he’s a fun guy, and he’ll grow on you

**Author's Note:**

  * For [notbang](https://archiveofourown.org/users/notbang/gifts).



> In an unintentional experiment as to how late a birthday gift can be...happy belated birthday for Sarah! Serious apologies for the wait; it took some time to germinate.

Once upon a time, there was an arrogant, lonely boy who fell in love with a girl too much like himself. There were two other guys as well as a whole swathe of neglected mental health issues and childhood traumas in the mix, before the girl he loved decided that she needed to love herself first and turned down all three of her suitors.

Fortunately enough for the boy in question (not that it entirely stopped the heartbreak), he had reached a similar conclusion independently: that it was better to be honest and live the life you want, rather than conform to others’ expectations. For him, that meant quitting his father’s real estate law firm and heading south to work for an animal sanctuary and get his head on straight.

Now, the lesson to be learned from all this drama _should be_ that there is no such thing as fairytale narrative structure in life, and that relying on tropes and cultural constructions of romantic love instead of honest feelings can only lead to disaster.

It is that. Unfortunately, however, despite her own lack of interest for playing into tropes, Heather Davis, the ultra-cool best friend of the lost girl and the accidental pseudo-older (and wiser) sister of the lonely rich boy—

“Are you older than me, though?” asks Nathaniel, rudely interrupting Heather’s inner monologue, but she doesn’t mind; it’s was starting to veer a little too Emma Thompson for her tastes.

(What? She has an active imagination.)

“Oh yeah. If not in years, then definitely in emotional maturity,” she slings back over her shoulder. “For example, I know how to not offend a wood nymph.”

Then again, a tendency to lapse into Emma Thompson monologues were nothing compared to actual, literal transformations. Like the one stumbling along behind her in the backwoods of Lake Tahoe as they struggled to find their way back to the main trail after _someone_ tried to storm off in a huff and accidentally blundered his way right into—

“I didn’t _say_ anything to her,” grouses Nathaniel.

“Not technically true.”

“I said _‘hi’_.”

“And there was your mistake.”

“Who gets mad at someone saying hi?” demands Nathaniel petulantly. “I was being _friendly._ I thought people were supposed to like that.”

“Humans like that. Wood nymphs are another thing entirely,” Heather points out. “And tone is a not-insignificant factor for both. Seriously, do you _hear_ yourself sometimes?”

“Should you really be lecturing about tone?” asks Nathaniel dryly, and normally, okay, that would be enough to earn at least an amused look, but not this time.

“Rude.” The dirt under her feet slides as they descend down a particularly steep bit of trail. Normally, outdoorswoman that she is, Heather likes to wander through nature and rushing has never really been her thing, but current extenuating circumstances demand otherwise.

“People at least know what I’m talking about,” she says. “And don’t have the immediate urge to punch me in the face. Like, you’re hot in a very punchable way, like a young James Spader. Or you were. Now, you’ve downgraded to being more Dave Franco grade punchable, which is a _significant_ improvement, don’t get me wrong, but still, like, a thing.”

“I was trying to be polite,” said Nathaniel sulkily, landing heavily as he steps from rock to rock, trying to ease his movement past this downward slope. Are his steps heavier than usual? Heather can’t quite tell.

Heather shrugs. “I agree, but I’m also not a wood nymph. At least she didn’t root you right where you stood? Does that help?”

“No.”

“Yeah, I knew it didn’t as I was saying it. Maybe she just had something against plaid?”

Nathaniel makes a ‘hell do I know’ kind of gesture with his arms and shoulders, eyebrows high up his forehead.

“You’re wearing plaid right now.”

Heather shakes her head. “Yeah, probably not. I think if that was the case, she would have cursed me, too. I think it’s just your face—I mean, can you blame her?”

“Yes,” says Nathaniel, but Heather speaks over him.

“--Here she is, minding her own business, taking a nap in a comfy redwood, and this Kristoff lookalike just blunders his way through—”

“Why would that be a problem? Setting aside whether a wood nymph knows the Disney canon, he harvested ice, not trees.” Nathaniel takes another wide step and nearly collides with Heather, who has one foot planted forwards but isn’t moving, only twisting around to give him a deeply disbelieving look.

“What?” he demands, self-conscious.

“You knew that just off the top of your head?”

“That sequel commercial is everywhere,” he defends, too quickly.

“Okay, if spending way too much outdoorsy time with you didn’t already convince me that you and Rebecca are like, male and female clones, that sticky brain for Disney trivia would do the trick.”

“We aren’t supposed to be talking about her,” says Nathaniel tetchily, as if he hadn’t been stressing this point so frequently that Queen Gertrude would have told him to take it down a notch. “The point of this walk was to help get Rebecca _out_ of my head, remember?”

“Right, because you didn’t want to accidentally blurt out another love confession while we’re all in the same luxurious vacation house. I do appreciate it.”

“So why are you bringing it up now?”

“Rebecca is distracting.”

“I am very aware of that, but we aren’t—”

“I thought it might be better to talk about that than the fact that you are now actively growing branches,” says Heather firmly, pausing and pivoting on her heel to face Nathaniel properly, for the first time since they left the copse in a hurry.

They aren’t very big branches –nubs, one might call them more accurately. But they are poking out of Nathaniel’s head like some kind of weird antlers and they are pretty hard to ignore, as a result. Heather isn’t one to believe in supernatural stuff, Occam’s Razor and all that—but yeah, while she might be able to explain away the wood nymph as some tech sis who decided to aggressively live off grid in a long, roundabout way that would probably sound like a new origin story for Poison Ivy, supernatural is the simplest call here.

Thwarted by Heather having planted herself ( _heh_ ) in his path, Nathaniel takes a deep, slow breath that Heather recognizes as a calming mechanism.

“Thank you for reminding me,” he says, positively dripping with sarcasm, but there’s an undercurrent of fear there, too.

“Yeah. It’s weird that she made it a gradual curse, though,” says Heather thoughtfully. “I mean, wouldn’t it make more sense to just turn you into a tree immediately? No more suffering?”

“Have you read Greek myths?”

“I was always more of an Egyptian mythology kind of girl, myself.”

“Well, she’s definitely a nymph in the Greek tradition,” Nathaniel mutters.

“I’m not surprised. Well, I am, but not about that. Come on, let’s find the trail again, and remind me again who wanted to hike in a place called the Desolate Wilderness?”

“Who tagged along to cash in on the favor I owed her?” points out Nathaniel, who, annoyingly, has a point. “You could have asked me for literally anything else. A new car. A canoe. You could have come down to Guatemala at any time and I could have given you a free tour. I would have introduced you to primate Heather. This one’s on you.”

“Touché.”

~

It takes them a half hour to find the trail again, and they have another full hour just to retrace their steps. Nathaniel is concerned that he won’t make it that far. When it was just his chest and torso that seemed to be curiously solid, he could pretend that if they got out of the woods, he could persuade himself it was some hallucination brought on by the panic of losing their way, but there’s a heaviness in his legs that cannot be entirely blamed on exhaustion.

And, of course, the branches. Can’t forget the branches, weighing down his shoulders.

He really doesn’t want to think about it.

“I think my blood’s turning to sap. I’m getting sluggish.”

“Maybe it’s low blood sugar. Ant protein?”

“Pass. I’m not sure what’s going on with my organs right now. I’m trying to think of a solution to stop turning into a tree, but nothing’s coming to mind.”

“What, your dad doesn’t have some dumb saying for this exact situation?”

“Surprisingly, no,” says Nathaniel dryly. “And the myths I know about people turning into trees left them as trees. Unless we start going into fairytales—”

“Okay, before we go too far down that road, just so you know, we are _not_ doing true love’s kiss,” says Heather. “Don’t even think of mentioning it.”

“I’m not,” says Nathaniel, sounding so appropriately revolted that it might have offended Heather, had Nathaniel been literally anyone else. “I don’t _ever_ want to kiss you. Hard pass.”

“Uh, rude.”

Nathaniel gives a gusty sigh. “Sorry. I’m sorry. It just kind of sucks that I spent two years trying to be a better person, being somewhere else and feeling like I am actually maturing as a person and getting better, only to still get myself in trouble when I open my mouth. It feels a little unfair.”

“Well,” says Heather after a pause. “I was about to say something about the irony of you being judged based on your appearance, but yes. In this particular case, you did get cursed on the whim of an angry dryad, so I’ll allow it.”

“You are _so_ reassuring.”

“I try.”

~

It seems to be taking much longer to get through the trail this time, even though they are going more downhill than up and ought to be moving faster, long-legged that both of them are. It could just be that this isn’t the exact same trail they came in on. Or, Heather thinks, with a brief glance at Nathaniel, his transformation is taking just a bit longer to get into effect.

Not that she’s going to bring it up to him. For all of his prissy exterior, he’s probably all too aware of himself right now.

Though…this new extreme self-awareness is making him _alarmingly_ philosophical.

“Maybe we’re thinking about this in the wrong way,” he says from somewhere behind her, almost musing. “Maybe, this is some great, elaborate metaphor that my ancestral roots are getting me stuck in one particular perspective and my potential for growth has been ruined for it, so I need to find a way to uproot myself—”

“Dude, _don’t,_ ” says Heather. “Getting metaphysical is not a good look on you. Also, that’s kind of _my_ thing. And I don’t think this is a metaphor—pretty sure that wood nymph just put a curse on you, and I hate that the world as it is makes that the literal answer to your problem.”

They keep moving through the trail.

“What are we going to say when we run into other hikers?” Nathaniel asks, touching the young branches at the top of his head and grimacing.

“I sincerely doubt that you will be the weirdest thing they’ve seen in this neck of the woods,” says Heather. She gives him another one of those penetrating looks that has him squirming. “Speaking of that, how is your neck feeling? Still have full range of movement?”

Nathaniel rolls his eyes and bends his neck from side to side.

“For now,” says Nathaniel. Heather is pretty sure that she likes this new Nathaniel much better than even nice Nathaniel—he can still be acerbic when he says what he thinks, just in a more acceptable range of sociability and with a sense of humor she would almost appreciate, if she had the time.

“All right, good. Now, watch your step, don’t blunder across the stream like a clumsy oak.”

“Would you stop it with the forestry puns?”

“Can’t, it’s a coping mechanism because you are literally turning into a tree right in front of me. I would have thought that ghosts existed before whatever all of…this did.” Heather gestures at all of him. “On the range of supernatural creatures, ghosts are totally more believable. But here we are.”

“Heather!”

“Hey, don’t bark at me.” She snickers a little.

Nathaniel is sufficiently distracted that he doesn’t call out her newest pun. “But seriously, going back to our earlier subject, how could I have pissed her off? It’s not like either of us littered or anything.”

Heather considers the question, arms crossed, fingers drumming absently against the opposite bicep.

“I mean, if we go with the idea that she is a transplanted (heh) Greek myth, maybe the answer is really as simple as: it’s the pa-tree-archy.”

Nathaniel groans creakily. “Heather…”

“Man, you don’t expect me to leaf these perfectly good puns, right?”

“Living with Rebecca really rubbed off on you, huh?”

Heather’s eyes narrow at him. “I will leave you here. Don’t think I won’t.”

“No, you won’t,” returns Nathaniel smugly. “You like me.”

“I do not.”

“Yeah, you do. You bet money on me.”

“I thought you learned that money isn’t a form of affection.”

“Very true. But it is a vote of confidence.”

“Maybe I just did it to be contrary. I mean, Paula threw down for Josh and it seemed like everyone else was for Greg—”

“Wow, thanks.”

“West Covina needs better things to occupy its time. But I might just have been weighing the odds.”

“Really?” Nathaniel stops walking; Heather pauses and turns around to face him.

“Wow, did you actually sound disappointed there?” she asks, raising her eyebrows.

“No! Well, maybe.”

“Hey, look at you, emoting.”

“She says in her standard monotone,” he deadpans, in a pretty good imitation of her intonation (not that she’ll tell him that).

Heather arches her eyebrows at him. “Don’t be like that, I’ve very expressive. I have expressed myself at you on multiple occasions. Now come on, don’t be so slow.”

“I can’t.”

“Come on, I know you’re a little stiff right now, but you’ve walked around like that before, a little further won’t hurt you—”

“No, Heather, I can’t move.”

“Wait, really?”

She leans down, ignoring Nathaniel’s grunt of discomfort. Sure enough, the bottom of Nathaniel’s hiking boot is oddly fused to the dirt—Heather tries to work her fingers under the sole, but encounters resistance.

“Oh boy.”

“Yeah.”

“Don’t panic.”

“Trying not to,” says Nathaniel in the kind of flat, bland tone that definitely is meant to conceal rising panic.

“Dude, no jokes, we’re probably operating on fairy tale logic here.”

“I thought we agreed that she was a Greek nymph.”

“This is way slower than a traditional Greek revenge. You should have been turned into a tree, like, instantly. But we’ve been hiking for a while and you’re only just like, ummm….”

“Rooted?”

“I wasn’t going to say it.”

“What’s stopping you? You have no problem delivering hard truths before.”

“I mean, yeah, but you aren’t actively being a stick in the mud, so now I feel bad rubbing it in.”

“Well,” said Nathaniel after a moment. “Uh, thanks? I guess that’s reassuring?”

“I mean, you’re still not that far above the bar for basic decency. You had two years. A little growth is like, mandatory.”

“Can we not talk about growths right now?”

The branches do seem to be getting larger. Some of them have cheerful green leaves. Heather glowers at them. She hears a small beep from her phone and pulls it out. To her relief, there is finally some signal.

“Right, sorry. I’ll find something else to get your mind off things. I have a lot of interests.”

~

Because her array of interests is vast, Heather finds another topic of conversation in the realm of communal pop culture to distract Nathaniel with while she fiddles with her phone.

Ingrate that he is, Nathaniel is not pleased with it.

“I’m not going to say it.”

“You should say it, though. Like, I’m not the biggest Marvel fan, but you do look like him.”

“Come on, it’s only three little words.”

“I said I’m not going to say it,” says Nathaniel testily. “I promise you, I don’t know how, but when we get out of this I will find a way to get Vin Diesel personally to say it to you, Heather, personally, but I’m not going to say it.”

“All right, but I have to say, you already got over those big three little words, like, a thousand times over, so these _other_ three little words really aren’t that much—”

“It’s worse, trust me.”

“I’m just saying, if you say it now, I can’t prove or disprove it, which will not be the case when our backup gets here.”

“Who’s your backup?” asks Nathaniel, entirely expecting it to be Hector and not being particularly optimistic about the idea. He can’t bend his knees or elbows any more, and he’s afraid to find out what’s going on in between those two areas.

“You’ll see,” says Heather mysteriously. But she sits under his branches (…oh god) and doesn’t seem to be going anywhere, so he feels a little bit of his irritation towards her uncurl.

They sit like that for a quiet half hour or so, Heather occasionally tracking something on her phone, while Nathaniel feels surprisingly peaceful, soaking up what sun he can.

“I heard about you singing Rebecca’s song,” says Heather after a little while.

Nathaniel sighs, setting his leaves rustling. “I thought you didn’t like musical theater.”

“Paula taped it and played it at one of our gurl group sleepovers.” She shoots him a quizzical look. “How did you know that I don’t like musical theater?”

“Intuition?”

“Doubt it. You’re kind of obtuse.”

“Ouch.” There’s a pause. “Rebecca told me once,” he says, a little reluctantly. “When we were together.”

“Ah.” Heather is silent for a moment. “Look, I don’t really do emotional nakedness with my friends’ exes unless they really need it, and, don’t get me wrong, you kind of need it—”

“I’m working on it.”

“I know. Like, I make fun of you a lot, but you are. But it might help you to know that’s part of why I bet on you. I mean, I wasn’t expecting your inner Fiyero to make an appearance, but it kinda sealed the deal for me.”

“What do you mean?”

“How alike you and Rebecca are.”

“What?”

“Like, Rebecca is a terrible roommate, and is pretty unreliable for a lot of basic human things. But she will make a total fool of herself if she thinks she can help you. She’s totally ride-or-die. And I think you’re kind of like that too. In an unhealthy way, a lot of the time, but you’re working on that.”

“Thanks.”

“I’m kind of impressed, actually, that you didn’t just fall back into her orbit after you got back home.”

“Are you really asking me about how Rebecca rejected me for the millionth time? It’s an old song, I thought you’d be tired of it.”

“But you’re gonna sing it anyways,” says Heather, with a slight grin. She tips her head up. “Or so says Hadestown. Also Greek, by the way.”

“Also a musical.”

“So you _do_ know.”

“I keep up with the cultural zeitgeist. The jungle had some hotspots.”

“Hm. So, tell me. Did Rebecca reject you or something recently? Because you haven’t been clear on that at all. And, weirdly, so has she. Usually she is super upfront about her relationship troubles.”

“You can’t be rejected if you haven’t made an overture.”

“Extending a branch, one might say?”

“Ha ha,” says Nathaniel, half-hearted but amused. “Why are you asking about this? I thought you were tired of Rebecca’s drama.”

“Wrong, I love drama that doesn’t involve me. Why else do you think I went on a bonding trip through the woods with you?”

“This is bonding?”

“Why else would I ask you to join me in a kayak on the lake this week? Multiple times? I don’t hang out with people I don’t like.”

“Oh.”

“Yeah.”

“That’s…flattering.”

“You’re welcome. So, have you been distracted by your leg growing roots yet?”

“…Well, I was.”

“Good, then I’m doing my job. And don’t worry, the cavalry are on their way.”

Nathaniel laughs, but Heather notes that there is something labored about it, as if what were once his lungs are turning woodsy, instead.

“What did you tell them, exactly?”

“The truth.”

Nathaniel flicks his eyes heavenward, which Heather takes as an indication that wooden-ness is truly setting in. “Who would possibly believe you about this?”

~

“Oh my god.”

“Oh God,” says Nathaniel, horrified. “Rebecca.”

“Finally,” says Heather with a huff. “What took you so long?”

“Google maps got me turned around,” says Rebecca, wiggling her phone, walking right up to him, open mouthed. “Oh my god. How did this happen? Nathaniel, what did you _do?_ ”

“I didn’t do anything,” snaps Nathaniel.

“He got on the wrong side of a wood nymph,” supplies Heather.

“Come on, man, don’t you know your myths? Don’t flirt with the pretty floral ladies—”

“Of course I do!” Nathaniel snaps. “Everyone has sex with the wrong people and get offended for the dumbest things. I definitely didn’t do the first, and I’m still trying to figure out what I did to get her angry!”

Rebecca looks a little skeptical, and glances at Heather for confirmation.

“Actually, it’s true. Apart from going off the trail, he didn’t really do anything weird.”

“Thanks, Heather.”

“I didn’t like, accidentally cause this, right? You aren’t turning into a sequoia just because I said—”

“I think he’s a regular California redwood, actually,” Heather observes. “Sequoia have way more girth.”

Rebecca nods empathetically. “Ohhh right. Good point. You’re not a girthy guy.”

Nathaniel groans as Heather pulls a disgusted expression.

“Ugh. Okay, now that you’re here, watch him.”

“Wait, what?” asks Nathaniel, alarmed. “Wait, where are you going?”

“I’m going to stage 2 of my plan. So I’ll just leave you guys here to, like, talk. So, I’ll just go over here…”

They pretty much only have eyes for each other, so it’s easy for Heather to sidle out of view, behind another tree, because before she tries plan B she wants to make sure plan A is truly defunct.

~

And then it’s just Nathaniel and Rebecca on their own, which is the exact situation that he had wanted to avoid on this trip, because he was trying to be healthy.

“I think this is the longest I’ve seen you hold still since we got up here,” says Rebecca with a ghost of a smile, clearly trying to go for humor.

How is it, that even as a tree she’s getting his blood racing? His branches rustle.

“Rebecca, thanks for coming down here, but seriously, I don’t know what Heather thinks you could do—”

“Hey, I’m the new and improved Rebecca. I come when called when I think it is reasonably within my ability to help,” says Rebecca breezily. “And, if we’re being honest, I kind of wanted to talk to you. We’re supposed to be catching up, you’ve been kind of avoiding me.”

“How? We’re on this trip together.”

“I mean, yes, but when I suggested hanging out by the pool you kept making up excuses, and man, it feels like you’re avoiding me.”

Nathaniel sighs again. “I’m not avoiding you. It’s just, I thought that I’d come back and things would be settled between us, but there’s this weird energy and I thought…I thought I wasn’t going to do that anymore. I just wanted to give myself space to clear my head.”

How is it still so hard to say how he feels? Rebecca has always had an easier time than most, drawing it out of him, but really, he’d thought he already dealt with all of this, why is it all fighting to come out like some Pandora’s box again?

(Huh, he absorbed more Greek myths than he thought.)

“Clear your head about what?” asks Rebecca, sounding almost…hopeful? Hopeful about what?

“You know.” She’s always been good at reading him when he doesn’t want to be read.

“I think so. But I’ve been trying to work on opening clear channels of communication with my closest friends, and so I think you really need to use your words for this one. Because your body language is usually my main tell and we are clearly not going to be able to use that.”

Nathaniel exhales. “I thought that a couple of years away would let things cool off between us. But since I’ve been back, and we’ve been catching up, it feels like old feelings are coming back. And, that’s not what you asked for and I didn’t want to bother you about it—”

“I might not have asked for it,” Rebecca interrupts quietly. “It doesn’t mean I’m against the notion. And did you really think avoiding me would help?”

“I wanted to give you space so I could sort myself out first, and not expect you to do that. And I’ve told you I loved you so many times, one more just feels tacky.”

Rebecca nods, frowning thoughtfully, and for a second Nathaniel is almost afraid that she might actually agree.

“Maybe that’s true. But honestly? That’s one of my favorite things about you. You’ve always been very clear about how you felt about me, for both good and bad. And if you’ve been feeling weird when we’ve been hanging out, it might be a little more than just you. I’ve been feeling, in the words of a very confuzzled lawyer said to me an otherwise very dark time in my life, ‘I feel feelings that are pertinent to you’.”

“I said that.”

“That you did.”

Nathaniel closes his eyes, grimacing. “Ugh.”

“If it makes you feel any better, you’ve always taken me too literally. When I called you a sequoia, I didn’t think you’d actually turn into one.”

“Well, you can’t take credit. In fact, I insist you don’t.”

She laughs, and his mind relaxes, even if his body cannot. “At least you still have your handsome face. I’m glad to have it here again.”

“We’ll see how long that lasts. Heather said she has a plan, but I don’t know what the hell it is, since we’re working on myth logic here.”

Rebecca narrows her eyes thoughtfully. It’s a look that both thrills him and makes him nervous in equal measure. “Interesting, Heather said it seemed like it could be fairytale logic.”

“What’s the difference?”

“And there’s only ever one cure there…if you consent?”

“Yeah,” Nathaniel says when he finds his voice again, a little strangled. “I do.”

There’s nothing, but the sound of Rebecca stepping closer, and—

“Ugh!” Rebecca steps back, grimacing. “That’s definitely the most wooden kiss I’ve ever had. I think you gave me a splinter.”

“You taste like corn chips,” rebuts Nathaniel childishly.

“You love it,” she retorts.

“I love you, not corn chips. There’s a difference.”

And okay, he’s the one still rooted to the ground, so that theory clearly didn’t work, but the smile that blossoms across Rebecca’s face at his admission almost more than makes up for it.

“Whatever you say, Grandmother Willow.”

“What?”

“Grandmother Willow? The talking tree in Disney’s highly inaccurate Pocahontas?”

Nathaniel wishes he could blame the turning into a tree thing on the complete blankness of expression, but no such luck.

“Oh come on, your childhood wasn’t that sad.” She pauses. “Actually, you know what, don’t answer that, it definitely was.”

~

Heather sighs. So much for that theory. Onto plan B.

~

“Hey, lady wood nymph? Lady Redwood? Hello?”

Backtracking is not one of Heather’s specialties, and while she doesn’t go as deep into the woods as her and Nathaniel managed on their ill-fated excursion, she figures that a wood nymph like that should be able to find her pretty easily.

“What?” snaps a voice almost like sandalwood, and Heather turns to face a scowling young woman behind her. She hadn’t gotten a good look at the nymph before, but now Heather could see that Fantasia hadn’t been too far off—she seemed entirely composed of plant matter, compressed into the shape of a girl, with reddish bark and streaming hair of pine needles and while the shape was vaguely humanoid, it was decidedly genderless.

“Oh hey,” says Heather. “You turned my friend into a tree.”

“Who?”

_Like, seriously?_ Heather wants to ask, but she knows better. “A few hours ago, I had a tall man with me? Now he’s half tree?”

The wood nymph tilts her (?) head consideringly.

“Oh,” she says. “He’ll be part of my forest before the day is done.”

“Mhm, right, seems definitely to be going that way. And, actually, not to be presumptuous or anything, but I was wondering if it would be possible for you to turn him back?”

“Why? He’s more useful that way.”

“Mhm, there might have been a time when I agreed with that statement, but these days he’s a pretty decent person, and I’m pretty sure this experience might turn him into more of a proper environmentalist. Or I’ll bully him into it, whatever. But it would be really nice of you if you could like, reverse it.”

Heather adds, “He’s sincerely remorseful for offending you, and if there is any way he could rectify his error going forward, he swears that he will.”

Okay, she’s laying it on a bit thick there, but hey. If she talks up a wood nymph in the middle of the forest and there’s no one around to see it, is she really making a sound? It’s an important philosophical question.

“He looks like one of those men who cut down trees.”

So it _was_ the lumberjack look. “Oh, I get it. But trust me, that guy has never cut down a tree in his life. Once, I would have said he’s never done manual labor, but he has. Just with like, taking care of tree-dwelling creatures, not with the actual trees themselves, which contributes to the local ecosystem of where he was.”

“One more tree is still better than one less. I could do with less humans around this area.”

“Okay, true, but in that case, you really don’t want that particular tree.”

The wood nymph seems suspicious, tendrils wavering in a nonexistent breeze. “Why not?”

“That girl I brought it, who keeps singing to him? She’s not going away. She is going to be visiting him as a tree for forever. And if you’re worried about driving off good things, trust me, she can do that. If you like the silence and the natural sounds of the woods, I can guarantee that she won’t give it to you. Neither will any of the other people who might find out he’s a tree.”

The wood nymph’s eyes narrow thoughtfully.

“Perhaps I should keep you instead,” she says, and oh, okay, great, the wood nymph is flirting with her and she’s going to need to be, like, super careful how to handle this. Having Paula around to avoid perjury would be really nice right now, because Heather is pretty sure telling the wood nymph that she’s married is not going to be the dealbreaker it should be.

“I dunno. I wouldn’t be the best tree either. Like, I get it, I am rather willowy, but while I’m outdoorsy, I’m not exactly tree material either.”

“No,” agrees the wood nymph. “There was something unyielding in the other one. Not in you. The enchantment wouldn’t hold.”

Hey, she’s immune to at least one type of enchantment. Good to know.

An idea occurs to her. “What if I could tell you that I could make it so that no humans bother you again, like, within reason?”

The wood nymph’s expression registers surprise and interest, despite lacking eyebrows. “Oh?”

“Oh, yeah. I can’t be a tree for it though. Gotta stay limber, can’t say timber.”

The wood nymph does not look amused. “Explain.”

“Okay.” _Yeeesh, tough crowd._

~

It’s late afternoon by the time Heather makes it back to where she left Nathaniel and Rebecca. Nathaniel is now distinctly branchless and moving normally, to Heather’s great relief (not that she’ll show it), while Rebecca is practically vibrating with excitement.

“Heather!” Rebecca bounces over to Heather. “I broke the spell! I hugged him and then Nathaniel went back to being human-shaped! It worked, it worked—”

“Mhm, that’s not exactly what happened.”

“Then how can you explain that, at the exact moment I hugged him, he turned back to normal,” Rebecca challenges.

“Maybe imagining telling his father that he is in love with an actual literal treehugger was enough to break the spell?”

“Ha ha.” Nathaniel rolls his eyes, and looks down at Rebecca with such an obviously sappy (heh) expression, that Heather doesn’t quite have the heart to actively contradict them beyond the minimal amount. They have their own version, and really, who knows if the wood nymph really was annoyed enough by all of them to let it go. It’s in that nebulous-but-possible category, and Heather got out of that encounter with all of her organs intact, so she’ll let this one slide.

“Look, whatever happened, thank you,” says Nathaniel, looking from Rebecca back to Heather. “And for helping me not freak out about the whole, uh, tree thing.”

“Don’t mention it,” says Rebecca.

“Yeah, because people will definitely think we’re crazy,” says Heather, shrugging. “But also, you’re welcome.”

“Plus, it’s nice to have proof of concept.”

“Proof of what concept?”

Nathaniel grins. “We _are_ definitely friends.”

“Ugh, gross.”

“Come on, no one bargains with a wood nymph unless they like the person. You would have just left me to turn mulch for the rest of my life—I’m pretty sure that you once said that that was the only positive way I could contribute to society, or something like that. So, thank you.”

Heather pulls a face, but she doesn’t object.

~

Later, as Rebecca gets distracted by a suggestively-shaped log, Nathaniel pulls Heather aside.

“So…for the record, Rebecca kissed me.”

“Ugh, don’t tell me that. We’re not that level of friendship yet.”

“Not the point. Did you know if she would do it?”

“I mean, she’s been texting me all afternoon asking about you. I figured that if you were going to be stuck as a tree, the least you could do is talk out your feelings.”

“I can’t decide if that is a nice thing for you to do or a really mean thing for you to do.”

“It’s a good thing for you to do. Plus, I really did need to talk to the wood nymph.”

“Well, thank you. Again.”

“Don’t thank me yet. You’re about to dedicate a decent percentage of that family money of yours to preserving forests, and possibly getting this area designated as off-limits to the wood nymph.”

“Figures.” He nudges her gently in the shoulder. “I still owe you.”

“Oh, and I will cash in, you can expect that.”

“Deal,” he says, grinning down at her.

This time, she returns it.


End file.
